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Cheetahs, rhinos among the animals at Nassau's White Oak Plantation

Kathy McIlvaine taps the horn of a white rhinoceros during a tour with her husband, John, of White Oak Conservation Center near Yulee on Sunday. Visitors paid $200 to tour the Plantation, which is owned by the Howard Gilman Foundation.

Barbara Tammany (left) and Alicia Grant get a close look at a cheetah cub during a tour of White Oak Conservation Center on Sunday.

Carnivore supervisor Karen Ziegler-Meeks has a serious chat with a cheetah cub on Sunday afternoon at White Oak Conservation Center. The mission of the center in Nassau County is to address stresses of threatened and endangered animal species.

A cassowary is one of 25 species and 200 animals that populate the White Oak Conservation Center.

YULEE — Sighting zebras in a field and cheetahs in the distance can quickly soften the discomfort of a washboard road leading through the North Florida pine country to the White Oak Conservation Center at White Oak Plantation.

And for about 100 visitors to the breeding and conservation center about 30 miles north of Jacksonville, animals were what they came for Sunday.

"It's something to have cheetahs and giraffes drooling on you on the same day," said Ann Farra, a visitor from Atlantic Beach. "Who can complain about that?"

Established in 1982 on 600 of the plantation's 7,400 acres on the Florida-Georgia border, the center's mission is to address stresses on threatened and endangered animal species and generally aid in animal conservation.

Visitors on Sunday paid $200 per person. Included in the group were donors to the private Howard Gilman Foundation that owns the plantation.

"This is a place designed to save species," said Kathy McIlvaine, who has been to the center several times over the past five years.She and husband John McIlvaine have been to Africa, where human encroachment threatens animal populations.

"It's important to have community support," she said. "I feel like I'm participating."

The center has advanced medical capabilities and is successful with special breeding problems, said Meredith Picray, the center's marketing manager.

"That's also what we focus on, concentrating on animals that are difficult to breed in captivity," she said.

More than 25 species and 200 animals populate the conservation center that tries to provide the animals with large areas similar to their native habitats. Outside the gates, it manages the Okapi Conservation Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Okapi are a forest giraffe in the republic's rain forests. There are 14 at the center, which has the largest breeding program for the animals outside of Africa.

There are 20 rhinos and 21 cheetahs at the center, including Omi and Isa, females born in November.

In the United States, the center does work such as rehabilitation of Florida panthers and Mississippi sandhill cranes and has training and research programs. It also has close ties with zoos and aquariums across the country.

Recently, the plantation and center were offered for sale. The property, according to the Wall Street Journal, is valued at $30 million by the foundation.

The plantation and center were established by Gilman, who inherited the holding that was owned by his family's company, the Gilman Paper Co. Gilman died in 1998 and turned the property over to the foundation.

Steve Shurter, director of conservation for the center, said it's hoped buyers will continue the conservation and research role and that they find it valuable and relevant. No programs have stopped, and nothing is expected to change moving forward from now, he said.

At the giraffe compound, visitor Adriene Bailey of Fernandina Beach called the center low-key and valuable.

"It's in our own backyard," she said. "It's more about species preservation than these outings."